Former Chinese Official Sheds Light On The Dark Side Of Power

Chinese author Wang
Xiaofang poses with his novel "The Civil Servant's Notebook" in
Hong Kong. Wang is known as an author of "officialdom" fiction, a
genre of Chinese literature dealing with corruption and shady
dealings in China's corridors of power.Antony Dickson/AFP/File

"Politics is an ugly business," says an official in Chinese
author Wang Xiaofang's novel, The Civil Servant's Notebook. "You
always need to keep a knife in reserve, even for your own boss."

Delving into the darkness of Chinese bureaucracy, Wang depicts a
world of intrigue where those at the top lose sight of their
principles in the race for political power.

It's a world that Wang is familiar with, having begun his own
career in the civil service and risen through the ranks of
officialdom to become private secretary to the deputy mayor of
one of China's biggest cities.

But then scandal erupted, and Wang's boss -- Ma Xiangdong, the
deputy mayor of the city of Shenyang -- was sentenced to death in
2001 for gambling away more than $3.6 million of embezzled funds
in Macau casinos.

Other officials were embroiled in the scandal. Wang was
eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, quit his job and put pen to
paper.

"That was an experience that rattled my entire life," Wang said
in an interview last week following a reading at the Hong Kong
International Literary Festival.

"After that, I didn't want to repeat the same life. I didn't want
to become a spiritual eunuch. I realised that to be able to be
yourself is real success," he said.

Since then Wang, who is 49, has published thirteen novels about
corruption and politics in China, selling millions of copies in
the process.

"The Civil Servant's Notebook" is his first novel to be
translated into English and its September release was
particularly timely as the world watches China deal with its
biggest political scandal in decades, ahead of a pivotal
leadership transition in November.

The book's portrayal of rumour, scandal and subterfuge as
candidates scramble to replace a fallen mayor resonates strongly
with the fall of Bo Xilai, a former star politician who China
says will now "face justice" for a litany of crimes.

With its allegations of graft and other lurid details, the Bo
Xilai scandal -- which has already seen Bo's wife convicted of
murder -- has caused divisions within the secretive party ahead
of the creation of a new power elite, analysts say.

Wang compares it to a moment in "The Civil Servant's Notebook",
when a character realises just before his execution that he has
been made what the author calls "a sacrificial lamb" for a system
that is racing to replace him.

"Bo Xilai has fallen, but there are more who take will his
place," said Wang. "If one man stumbles, a thousand will be in
place behind him."

Wang tends to take a sympathetic view of officials who become
ensnared by the evils of the system in which they work. "The
system is what created the officials in the first place," he
said.

"If there were a good system in place, these very same people
would not go down the road of corruption."

One of the contenders in the novel mulls a report on a fallen
mayor who "confused the gate of hell with the gate of heaven",
and realises that "there's only one door I've been compelled to
push open each day, and that's the door to my office.

"Every day when I open this door I am at my most smug and
complacent."

Wang said the consequences of the rule of first emperor Qin Shi
Huang more than 2,000 years ago -- in which he moved violently to
restrict freedom of thought -- were still being felt.

In the book, he uses an official who has spent his life drinking
his own urine as a symbol of "this several thousand years of
evil.

"For Chinese people, the obsession with power is in the bones.
The only way for China to improve its political system is to
choose a democratic and statutory process -- that is how the
world is developing."

Wang points out that of his 13 books, 11 have been critical of
the officialdom system. He is prone to lofty statements about his
work and his literary method but rejects the "absurdist" tag that
some have given it (even the stationary talks in "The Civil
Servant's Notebook").

"When this book was first published in China in 2009, the media
suggested that I had distorted and uglified the image of civil
servants, that I had used the absurdist method of writing. But
what I've written here is derived completely from true life
stories," he said.

Others have suggested that Wang's books serve as guides for
advancement among official ranks, labelling him king of the
"officialdom" genre. The Chinese version of "The Civil Servant's
Notebook" carries quotes of approval from Premier Wen Jiabao.

"That's one way I can protect myself," Wang said with a laugh,
stressing that they are not friends. "But officialdom fiction
makes no contribution to art or literature," he said.

"I am deeply suspicious of writers who cannot talk about the evil
that is surrounding them. The biggest problem with Chinese
literature right now is that it's all the same -- everyone is
just copying each other. I have created a new style and that is
my contribution."

Wang's visit to Hong Kong came ahead of Chinese writer Mo Yan's
Nobel literature prize victory on Thursday, a result that
provoked some academics and dissidents to accuse the author --
known for exploring the brutality of China's tumultuous 20th
century -- of being a stooge for officialdom.

Wang says he has four more books in the pipeline, but that the
political environment is "too sensitive" for them at present.

One of them, he says, is called "Oil Painting", which he
describes as being about victims of an injustice who go to
Beijing to complain but then disappear.

"Perhaps it was God's intention that someone with the ability to
write was immersed in this world of power and corruption," said
Wang.

"To steal secrets from this hidden world and reveal it through
the form of literature."